UPDATE ON COVID-19

11th May, 2020

Dear Patients, Families and Friends of Somerville Dental Health,

As the COVID-19 restrictions begin to ease, we are very pleased to announce that as of Saturday 9th May, the government has eased the restrictions on dental services from Level 2 down to Level 1 in line with the recommendations of the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee (AHPPC) and the Australian Dental Association due to the continued decreased risk of COVID-19 transmission in the community.

This means that we will now be able to offer the FULL range of dental services to help you with your dental care needs.

As always, the safety of our patients, their families and our staff are our top priority. Rest assured that we will continue to practice and maintain the highest infection control standards and protocols in our clinic, including the additional precautions and protocols that we have been implementing since the very beginning of the restrictions.

Our team are currently in the process of contacting all patients whose appointments were put on hold or cancelled due to the Level 2 and 3 restrictions. However, feel free to contact us to organise a new appointment or reschedule your cancelled appointment.

We’d like to thank you for your patience during these unusual times while our team is working hard to contact everyone. We’d also like to thank you for your cooperation in helping us ensure the safety of our community.

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to send us a message via Facebook messenger on our Facebook page, through our website www.sdh.com.au or give us a call on (03) 5977 5459 to speak to one of our friendly team members.

We look forward to seeing you all again soon!

27th April, 2020

We are pleased to announce that as of Monday 27th April, the government has eased the restrictions on dental services from Level 3 to Level 2 in line with the recommendations of the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee (AHPPC) and the Australian Dental Association due to the decreased risk of COVID-19 transmission in the community.

This means that we will now be able to provide a wider range of dental services that are within the recommended guidelines, including some non-urgent routine dental treatment provided that certain criteria are met, such as the routine use of “rubber dam” with fillings. Unfortunately, any aerosol-generating procedure that cannot be carried out under “rubber dam” will not be able to be undertaken, including the usual “cleans” using the ultrasonic scaler. However, where it is recommended and deemed appropriate, maintenance cleans may still be undertaken using “handscalers” where deemed appropriate because it is considered unlikely to generate aerosols.

As always, the safety of our patients, their families and our staff are our top priority. For this reason, we would like to take this opportunity to reassure you that we always have, and always will, practice the highest infection control standards and protocols in our clinic.

In fact, we have also implemented the following additional precautions and protocols guided by the latest additional infection control recommendations, including the following:

Hand sanitiser available for use by patients when they arrive and leave.

Very strict screening process to ensure all patients coming to the practice are fit and well, and not sick – this means no patients who are coughing, sneezing, feeling feverish or having sore throat

Removed all magazines and newspaper from our waiting room to avoid contamination

Social distancing in our waiting rooms and wherever possible in the clinic

Minimal people encouraged inside the treatment rooms and the practice in general (we endeavour to be a “PATIENT ONLY” practice, where possible only the patient being treated is inside the practice, except for children or individuals that require an accompanying parent or guardian)

Frequent wiping down of furniture and surfaces with disinfectant

Clear barrier screens installed at reception to protect both patients and reception staff.

PLEASE NOTE: If you have had an appointment recently cancelled with us, we will be contacting you to reschedule you in sooner. If you have NOT had an appointment cancelled recently, your appointment will proceed as scheduled, unless any planned procedure have been deemed to be outside the scope of Level-2 restriction guidelines. However, feel free to contact us to organise a new appointment or reschedule your cancelled appointment.

We’d like to thank you for your patience during these unpredictable times. We’d also like to thank you for your cooperation in helping us ensure the safety of our community.

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to send us a message via Facebook Messenger on our Facebook page, through our website www.sdh.com.au or give us a call on (03) 5977 5459.

We look forward to seeing you all again!

1st April, 2020

Dear Patients, Families and Friends of Somerville Dental Health,

As of Friday 27th March, dental practices across Australia have been advised by the Australian Dental Association and Australian Government to implement Level 3 restrictions for dental treatment due to concerns with COVID-19 pandemic.

This means that for the safety of our team and the community, we are limiting our services to URGENT or EMERGENCY treatment only, and only dental treatments that do not generate aerosols, or where generating aerosols is limited to urgent or emergency care such as the following:– Facial swelling or dental trauma– Severe dental pain– Abscess/Infection– Medically necessary dental care (i.e. referred by a medical practitioner)

Our hours from day to day will alter, however we are still open to help those in need and do our part in minimising the unnecessary burden on our hospitals for as long as it is reasonably safe to do so and until further guidance by the government.

If you are experiencing an Emergency, please contact one of our friendly Dentists:

Andrei Kostka

Darwin Luc

Ross Churcher

If you are unsure whether you would be considered an emergency, please don’t hesitate to give our dentists a call for advice on (03) 5977 5459.

All routine dental treatment will be temporarily postponed. Patients with upcoming appointments that are not deemed an emergency will soon be notified by SMS. We will contact all these patients in the near future to reschedule.

For any other non-urgent enquiries – please contact the surgery on (03) 5977 5459 or on Facebook messenger and leave a message, one of our team members will get back to you as soon as they can.

We have taken additional infection control measures and protocols to protect our team and patients, including the following:– Hand sanitiser available for use by patients when they arrive and leave.– Hand washing on entering our clinical rooms.– Pre-procedural anti-viral & anti-bacterial mouth-rinses prior to any dental treatment.– Very strict screening process to ensure all patients coming to the practice are fit and well, and not sick.

We thank everyone for their understanding during this difficult time.

From all of us at SDH – Stay Safe and we’ll get through this together! And remember to practice excellent hand hygiene and spatial distancing.

March 19th, 2020

In light of the COVID-19, we are deeply concerned about the health and well-being of our patients, families and our team here at SDH.

It is business as usual for us and we remain open until advised otherwise.

We have always used and continue to use Universal Precautions, following mandate cleaning and disinfection protocols. We wanted to let you know that we will be taking additional safety precautions to help reduce the risk of transmission and ensure that everyone remains safe.

You will find that we have become a PATIENT ONLY practice. Only patients and an accompanying adult (if needed) should enter the practice. Siblings, grandparents and friends should remain outside in their vehicles.

We will require patients to wash their hands on entering our clinical rooms.

We have removed all magazines and newspaper from our waiting room to avoid contamination.

If you have traveled outside of the country or have been in contact with someone who has, we ask that you please reschedule your appointment.

If you or a family member has recently been sick with a fever, cough, shortness of breathe, runny nose or sore throat, we ask that you please reschedule.

We are also practice social distancing within our waiting room.

If you have any questions, please contact a member of our team on (03) 5977 5459.